Deathmatch Classic: Remorseful Heartache
by Jxckxt
Summary: A depressed mascot loses touch.


Mister Deathmatch Classic was alone.

He stood in his server, 1/24, pondering how his life had gone so wrong.

Indeed, it had been years since he had seen a single, real, live player. His life was beginning to lose meaning. He had substituted his now non-existent playerbase with bots programmed to run around and shoot, but it was just not the same. Those laughs and giggles in the voice chat late at night; that hyper feeling as he bounced across the map shooting anyone he saw, they were just not replaceable. Why did it stop? Surely his game was more fun than those other scandalous gimmicky "games" of the now, like Overwatch and PUBG. Occasionally he would notice somebody booting the game out of confusion and joining only to leave 2 minutes later, some 2003 who picked it up through the Counter-Strike Anthology, but in the past years even those numbers had ceased. He was all alone, with 7 empty servers to himself, soaking in his sorrows.

It was not by any means his first time being the odd one out. From the beginning his game was scarcely promoted, with only a single promotional art image released, one he loved so much he had it hung up on the main menu. It featured him in his younger years, wielding a double barrel shotgun with that action-movie braggadocio you couldn't recreate if you tried. But his game was never even given a solo-release, indeed the closest he got to that was a Steam page and featuring on some WON discs. The game hadn't even had a single review in 3 and a half years.

He rocket jumped around the barren halls of The Bad Place, trying to keep his mind distracted, when he saw a chat notification in the bottom left corner.

"Alphablaster has joined the game."

He wiped his visor to make sure he hadn't been hallucinating. A player, in 2017? He nearly blew himself up with his rocket launcher in distracted excitement. Mr. DMC began running through all the different conversation starters he had pondered all those years ago to try to make a good impression on his next visitor in his head.

"HI! MY NAME IS MISTER DEATHMATCH CLASSIC! HOW ARE YOU DOING, MR. ALPHA BLASTER?!" sprung from his lips, and onto the chat box in the bottom left. For a moment there was silence, before he heard the chat noise he hadn't been reminded of in Gabe knows how long.

"Uhh, pretty good. This game anything like Quake?"

Mr. Deathmatch grew weary. It was one thing everyone noted about him and his game; it was constantly being compared to Quake and never left to stand on its own two legs. It was something that had bothered him for years and he considered it one of his worst handicaps when it came to luring in new players. "Well why don't I just go play the original Quake, then" they would say, not understanding how much his lighting and water effects added to the experience. "Y-yes, my game is reminiscent of Quake. But I promise you it's different! It's its own game and I think it's more fun!"

"Well uh, I like Quake. Hey how many players does this game average per day?"

DMC was puzzled. He was unsure what to tell this new player. Should he tell the truth about his game's tenuous playerbase in hopes of him to invite new friends, or shall he commit a falsehood and attempt to fake popularity to attract him more? He waited 15 seconds to reply, and by then AlphaBlaster had grown tired of waiting on a response.

"Well, the guns are from Quake, I can tell you that. I could host a server on this game if there's enough people willing to play it.

"Th-that would be wonderful! Uuhh... We have a small but growing fanbase. If you could invite some of your friends to play with us that would be great!"

"Alright I'll think about it. I need to go for now though. My parents are calling me to get off the computer, I've got school tomorrow."

"Alphablaster has left the game."

And just like that, "AlphaBlaster" was gone. He was alone again, but now with more hope for his future than he had displayed or felt in eons. Soon he could restore his game to the fun it used to be, and do this and that, and ooh boy!

He waited for days on the arrival of his new-found companion. He practiced all his signature moves he wanted to show off, and he set up the server's cvar commands to be just right. He was so happy!

...

It had been a month. Nobody had decided to join his server. He still had confidence in his friend, hoping for them to return, but it was waning and he started to feel down about himself. He sat down and dipped his toes in the oddly non-lethal lava of dcdm5, and began to think. What if AlphaBlaster never returned? What if he hid the game from his Steam library out of shame, and deathly warned his friends from the game, of the overly-enthusiastic moronic weirdo who lurked the servers 24/7 and talked in all caps? It was too much to bare.

Mr. Deathmatch Classic pulled out his shotgun, and stood at the top of the ramp. He aimed it at himself and shot himself.

And then he shot himself again.

And again.

And again.

It took him over 12 shots to kill himself, as the shotgun in his game was so weak. Upon the 12th shot he fell back in the lava, playing one last death animation.

In his dying breath he saw one final message in the bottom left corner.

 **"Mr. Deathmatch Classic has left the game."**


End file.
